Motility of eukaryotic flagella studied with the bottom-up strategy

2016 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 26440089
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Biophysics
• Research Institution: National Institute of Information and Communications Technology
• Principal Investigator: Oiwa Kazuhiro 国立研究開発法人情報通信研究機構, 未来ICT研究所, 主管研究員 (10211096)
• Research Collaborator: KIRIMA Junya ; SHIRAGA Misaki
• Project Period (FY): 2014-04-01 – 2017-03-31
• Keywords: ダイニン / 鞭毛運動 / 再構成実験系 / 自己組織化

Outline of Final Research Achievements

The complexity of the eukaryotic flagellar axoneme is derived from 200-600 types of modular building blocks assembled hierarchically. These building blocks are precisely arranged along doublet microtubules(MTs) and regulated in a coordinated fashion to produce periodic flagellar beating. To reveal the mechanism, we have carried out in vitro reconstitution of axonemal structures in a bottom-up manner. To MTs polymerized from fragmented axonemes, we added crude outer-arm dynein extract from Chlamydomonas axonemes. These dyneins formed regular arrays on the MTs in the self-organized manner and stiff MT-bundles. Addition of ATP occasionally elicited association and dissociation cycles of MTs. When both ends of a MT bundle were clamped, shear between MTs at the middle part forced MTs to loop out from the bundle and the characteristic S-shaped bending was formed. These cyclic interactions between dynein and MTs will be an essence of the beating mechanism of the axoneme.

Free Research Field

生物物理学